


The Heart in Winter

by Milligan (Blackheathen)



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24832990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackheathen/pseuds/Milligan
Summary: Sarah has a visitor one snowy evening.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	The Heart in Winter

The Heart in Winter

Sarah leant forward over the sink so that her breath could mist along the window. Watching as the thin tendrils spread out over the glass, it made her smile with the memory of herself as a child. She fancied that she could still leave secret messages about the place, little snatches of rhyme or prose hidden in plain sight to all except those who knew how to reveal them.

“Say your right words” she said aloud to the kitchen, recalling that that had been one of her favourites. She looked again at the meagre wisp of fog that she’d just left behind and frowned. It’d be hard to fit all four words in; she had little breath these days to waste on windows. And leaning over the sink had only reminded her to take her evening pills so that she might walk a bit straighter and sleep a bit easier for a while.

Sarah drew her dressing gown closer around her shoulders. One thing for sure, she thought, writing secret messages in glass meant that winter was here. The copper pipes creaked alarmingly as she drew water into the kettle for tea. She watched the blue flames on the stove curl up and around the base while she struggled with only a little cursing to open the packet of teabags.

A shadow crossing along the windowsill outside made her jump and drop the  hard-won teabag on the floor.

“Damn it” she muttered, steeling herself for the pain riddled journey down to fetch the little bit of paper and string. When had this become so difficult? She should have bought one of those grabber things that the pharmacist had tried sympathetically to sell her last spring. But that was the problem, he’d been  sympathetic, and Sarah would never have any of that, thank you.

Dumping her teabag into the cup, Sarah glared across at the shadow that sat unconcernedly on her window outside. “You again!” she growled at it, and the scraggly cat turned  its head at the sound of her voice. Well, she supposed, the stupid cat probably thought that was its’ name, since that was all she ever said to it.

You-again showed up at her house every winter and had done so for many now, each season looking a bit more worn than the previous one. Sarah didn’t know where he camped the rest of the year but she suspected he lived rough like so many other strays. There were probably a few tins of cat food left over from his last winter sojourn; a proud being venturing into the land of humanity that he so obviously abhorred the rest of the year. Sarah smiled as she remembered an old saying, that you’re nothing until you’ve been ignored by a cat.

Her kettle whistled and Sarah took care with the steaming water as she filled her china cup. Soon the familiar smell of fresh tea filled the kitchen, into which she added a dab of milk and a sugar cube. Perfect, and warm too around her fingers. Crossing the room to the veranda doors, Sarah picked up a soft shawl and knitted rug she kept hanging on the hook there and let herself out. The dusk air was chilly and fresh but the breeze was light. All the same, Sarah knew that it would soon be too cold to keep up her favourite evening ritual of watching the light fade at the end of the day. There were longer, colder months ahead but she was determined to enjoy the outdoors at least until New Year.

The upholstery on her old sofa was cold as she sat down, arranging her blanket and shawl with the one hand and holding hot tea in the other. You-again waited patiently until she had everything secured before jumping up into her lap. Sarah petted his rough old coat till his little paws flexed and his nose drooped down to nestle into her body warmth. His own private heating pad till the end of the season. Sarah wondered if he and the other winter-strays met up in the Spring to brag or rate their various human heating systems. Down the street, Sarah could hear a small group of Christmas  carolers making their way in her direction. She always looked forward to hearing them sing, and she had made some of her fruit mince pies to gift out. Her modest pine tree stood in the window behind, garlands of lights making it shine out onto the white covered yard.

Sarah let down her long hair from its bun when her ears began to prickle in the cold. Every now and then she was vaguely alarmed by the state of her hair. Surely this silvery gray and slightly wispy stuff was just an intruder; underneath it would still be as black and glossy as it had always been. Her hands never used to snag on it like they did nowadays.

“Maybe I should just cut it off” she said to the figure in the corner of her eye, “you know, get it dyed purple and set in curlers like all the other grandmothers do”. Sarah pretended to scowl over her  tresses, but she was really trying to catch him out, just this once. Through the straggly veil she could see him, perched lightly on the rail  so as to capture just the right amount of snow reflected  streetlight onto his face. His profile and dimensions sharpened as she watched, and Sarah entertained the idea for a mere few seconds that perhaps she’d finally caught him like a leprechaun with his bag of loot.

He certainly looked like one, dressed in silk and feathers trimmed with pale gold thread and glinting red rubies tossed randomly about his cape and boots. Goblin King, Fairy King, Dream King. Sarah had long since given up the guessing game as to what he was, she only knew he was as unchanged now in his world as she was old and frail in hers. Or perhaps it was just a glamour thrown over her feeble senses, or simply the way her mind wanted to remember him. It had been more than seventy years since she‘d looked into those eyes.

“Are you still watching me after all this time?” she asked, although she knew the answer even if he declined to offer it. Of course he was. He’d always been there in the corner of her world, always silent, barely seen as more than a whisper of light or sparkle like sunlight on tear dampened lashes. A tiny mote of himself, folding up and disappearing if she dared turn her head too quickly. Sometimes though, he’d been closer. A soft hand on her shoulder amidst the chaos of childbirth, a face in the crowd to lead her when she was lost, a dark cloaked mourner on the edges of the funeral gathering as her husband descended to the earth. A secret message on the cold glass of her mortality.

Sarah shivered and felt her head spin as he moved towards her. Gliding to within a mere few inches from her trembling knees, he offered out a glove clad hand.

“Won’t you dance with me?”. His voice was of course precisely as she remembered it.

“Dance?” she repeated just like a half witted old person would do as she cringed inwardly at her raspy voice, “Jareth I’m nearly ninety years old. I can’t dance anymore and even if….”

Sarah broke off her protests as she watched her own hand coming up to grasp his as if of its own accord, except that the withered and pain ridden joints were now smooth and delicate, and as she held on to him, strong again. She was on her feet in seconds, not minutes, as youth and life flooded through her.

“How?” she asked and he put a velvet covered finger to her mouth.

“Ssh now. Don’t spoil everything with your irreverent questions again”. Jareth led her down the front steps and out onto the frost covered grass which crackled under her feet. Sarah looked down and saw that she wore tiny silk slippers and a silver gown to match. Her black hair fell in a luxurious curling wave down her back. And there was music all around them of course. He had forgotten nothing. Sarah felt a light as a feather as he swept her around the garden, one hand in hers and the other against her waist, pressing her closer and closer as they twirled until the sky spun and the first snow fell over her shoulders, each flake resonating against her smooth skin like the chimes of a clock.

“Jareth” she laughed, “this is just delightful! I feel so young again”

“So it would seem” he replied, but his returned smile to her faltered for a eye blink as he leant forward to kiss her lips so briefly she thought she’d imagined it. He gathered her closer still so that her head nestled into his shoulder.

“Jareth?”

“Yes, Sarah?”

“I can’t go with you. Even now, when you’ve turned back the time, stopped the clock or whatever this is, you can’t un-turn my life. I’ve lived it already, I’ve loved and been loved in return, and  it's been so wonderful. I made the right decision, all those years ago. I can’t go with you now, and I’m so sorry for that”

“I know you can’t, Sarah” he said above her head and she could feel him smile through his words as he added, “and that’s not why I’m here”

“Oh thank goodness” she breathed in relief, then laughing as he spun her around again and again, sending the falling snow swirling as he steered them towards the garden gate. The Christmas singers were coming closer, and Sarah wondered what they would see when they looked in her yard. Probably some old dame in an old shawl dancing about the lawn by herself. It didn’t matter to her. When you got old you could get away with things like that.

Up on the veranda, You-again sighed in the way that only cats can as he kneaded his paws into the tatty old blanket that covered his own private heating pad. He was cold, the heat had gone out. There would be no warmth to be found in this house this winter, not anymore.


End file.
